The short answer
NovelPad, and buy the $89 desktop licence unless you genuinely need sync.
It is cheaper at every horizon, and it is the only one of the two that lets you stop paying without losing access.
| Dabble | NovelPad | |
|---|---|---|
| Entry monthly | $19 Writer | $15 Pro Cloud |
| Annual | $228 | $150 |
| Buy outright | — | $89 desktop only |
| Lifetime | $699 | $349 |
| Upgrades on the $89 | — | $39, only when you want them |
| Trial | 14 days, no card | Free trial |
| Billed in | US dollars | US dollars |
From dabblewriter.com/pricing and novelpad.co/pricing, read 23 September 2026.
The money, held still
| After | Dabble Writer | NovelPad Pro Cloud | NovelPad desktop |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 year | $228 | $150 | $89 |
| 2 years | $456 | $300 | $89 |
| 3 years | $684 | $450 | $89 (+$39 if you upgrade) |
| 5 years | $1,140 | $750 | $89 (+ upgrades) |
The $89 line is the one worth staring at. It is less than five months of Dabble, and after that it does not move.
That is unusual now. Almost every writing app has gone subscription, and NovelPad keeping a buy-once desktop option is a real point of difference rather than a marketing one — the trade is explicit and stated on their own page: no sync, no cloud, by design. Your novels live on your machine.
What you give up for the $89
Sync. That is the whole trade and it is not a small one if you write on more than one device.
The desktop licence is offline by design. No phone, no tablet, no picking up where you left off on a different laptop, no automatic off-machine backup. If your writing happens in one place, that is a feature — nothing to leak, nothing to go down, nothing to pay for. If you draft on a train on your phone, it is a deal-breaker and you want Pro Cloud at $15 or Dabble at $19.
Where Dabble earns its extra $4 a month
Polish, and a slightly gentler on-ramp. Dabble is one of the most immediately usable writing apps there is: you open it, you write, and everything is already saved everywhere. The goal tracking is good, the plot grid is genuinely useful without becoming a second job, and nothing asks you to read anything first.
Its higher tiers — Author at $29 and Bestseller at $49 — add collaboration and sharing rather than writing features. Most authors want the $19 plan and should ignore the rest.
Where NovelPad earns the comparison
Beyond price, its tracking is a little smarter. Boards, timelines and character tools that surface where a thread or a character has gone quiet across a manuscript — useful in a long book, and the sort of thing you only appreciate at 80,000 words when you cannot remember whether the sister appeared after chapter nine.
The thing neither does
Neither formats a book. Both export DOCX and stop.
That is not a flaw — they are writing tools and they are honest about it — but it is where a lot of self-published books go wrong. A DOCX export is a manuscript, not an interior. Chapter openers, running heads, gutter margins, widow and orphan control and a print-ready PDF are a different job with different software.
Draft finished?
Print interior from £69, print plus Kindle £119, complete package £179 — KDP-ready in 24 hours, whichever app it came out of.
Format my book →Choose NovelPad if
- You want to stop paying one day
- You write in one place and can live without sync
- $89 against $684 over three years settles it
- You are writing something long enough for thread tracking to matter
Choose Dabble if
- You move between laptop, tablet and phone constantly
- You want the gentlest possible start
- The $4 difference is less important than liking the thing you open every morning
- You will take the 14-day trial and decide on feel, which is the right way to choose a writing app
Related
- Scrivener vs Dabble — £55 once against $19 a month
- Scrivener review for self-publishers
- Best book formatting software — for after the draft
- Atticus vs Reedsy Studio — the formatting-side comparison
Frequently asked questions
Which is cheaper, Dabble or NovelPad?
NovelPad, at every horizon. Its cloud plan is $15 a month against Dabble’s $19, its annual is $150 against Dabble’s $228, and its desktop licence is $89 once where Dabble has no buy-outright option below $699. Over three years: NovelPad Pro Cloud is $450, Dabble Writer is $684, and NovelPad desktop is $89 plus perhaps one $39 upgrade.
Can I buy NovelPad outright instead of subscribing?
Yes, and it is the most interesting thing about it. $89 buys the desktop app outright — your novels live on your machine, offline, with no sync and no cloud by design. Major-version upgrades are $39 and only when you want them. There is also a $349 lifetime option that includes the cloud. Dabble’s only buy-once route is the $699 lifetime licence.
Do either of them format a book for KDP?
No. Both export DOCX and that is where their job ends. They are writing tools, not typesetting tools, and treating an export as a finished interior is the most common way self-published books end up looking almost right in a way readers notice without being able to say why. Draft in either, lay the book out somewhere built for it.
Which has the better plotting tools?
They approach it differently. Dabble’s plot grid is a visual board of scenes and threads you drag around, which suits writers who think in structure. NovelPad leans on boards, timelines and character tracking with slightly more automation, including tools that surface where a character or plot thread has gone quiet. Both are good; neither will fix a book that has no shape.
Do they bill UK authors in pounds?
Neither does. Both price in US dollars, so a UK subscriber pays the mid-market rate on the day plus whatever the card adds, typically another 2% to 3%, every month. If pound pricing matters, Scrivener is £55 once from a British company and Jutoh is £35.
